Beyond the Laboratory: Indian Knowledge System and the Limits of Western Medical Science in Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome

Amitav Ghosh, an anthropologist and novelist, is a reclaimed author and a shining star in the galaxy of world literature written in post-colonial age in English. He gained name and fame with his debut novel, The Circle of Reason in 1986, and has penned several novels, dealing with the numerous deep, emerging, historical and medical issues. The Calcutta Chromosome (1996) is a research and science novel, dealing with the Indian traditional knowledge and the hegemony of Western medical science in the colonial period in India. The novel reconstructs the reality based imaginative story of Ronald Ross’s discovery of the malaria parasite by embedding it within a counter-narrative of subaltern knowledge, secrecy, and mystical traditions. This paper closely examines the text of the novel to approve the findings of Ghosh’s research for destabilizing the authority of Western science by validating Indian indigenous knowledge, which encircles oral traditions, ritual practices, spirituality, and esoteric science. Murugan, an Indian born New York scientist, as the mouthpiece of the author, deeply investigates the progress of Ronald Ross’ search of Malaria parasite and finds a sudden and overnight change in his track to get success by snatching the ideas from the Indian subalterns and awarded with the Noble prize for the discovery, he never did.